So is neutral the engine position halfway, forward engine down, and reverse engine up?

That is correct.The lift lever is in the neutral position now with the pin setting up against the stop tab on the frame.You can pull the lever back for reverse without having to squeeze the handle to lift the pin.When you let the lever go back forward, it will back to the neutral position and stop there.The handle has to be squeezed to lift the pin over the stop tab and then the lever can be moved forward to drive the tractor.The handle then has to be squeezed again to move the lever back into the neutral position.

One end connects to the lift arm and the cable goes in-between the two rollers on top of the steering sprocket.

Then it goes over the pulley on the backing plate and down to connect to the lift arm.

The engine lifts up and down OK but I have realized at this point that I have the lift arm set wrong.

The bottom of the lock pin had broken off at the hole where the pin goes thru to hold the spring in place so I had to make a new lock pin.I made the pin so it would rest up against the tab on the left of the stop bracket to hold the tractor in neutral.

The lock pin is lifted up and the lever is moved forward to engage the belt and drive the tractor.

The problem with this is the lever can continue to rotate forward until the cable rides on the steering chain.Right away I'm thinking that this is not right.

You know the old saying ... "If all else fails, read the instructions", well that's what I did.Sure enough, the Bean Cutler manual shows that the lock pin should slip down over the far right end of the stop bracket for neutral position.The drive position would be from there forward and the stop tab is to keep the lever from going too far forward.

So .. I need to remake another lock pin because this one is not long enough and then make up another lift cable.

Now that is about the neatst thing I've ever seen. It just amazes me at what you people find out there. And it is looking almost like new. Good job. Something to be very proud of. It is definitly a show stopper.

Glad you learned that now. I was wondering about stopping the machine if you have to get the pin over a tab to do it.

It is logical that they would design this so the lever could just be pulled back and it would automatically lock into neutral.I'm surprised that I didn't catch on to that when I was making up the lock pin.For some reason it just didn't dawn on me until I had it all together and actually used the lever.

The Ridemaster drive is the same except that the engine lift cable is controlled be a lever directly under the steering wheel instead of the lever along side the steering wheel like on the Bean Cutler.The control lever on the Ridemaster has a plate that the lever rides on all the time.This plate is split right in the center and the front part is raised up to form a positive stop to hold the cable in neutral position.

This is a good view of that control lever and plate on the Ridemaster cart.

Glad you got it figured out, Ray. I hope the redo won't be much of a challenge. Maybe you can incorporate something similar (in operation) to the Ridemaster, not having to squeeze the lever to get back to neutral.
This is what I was thinking:
Sorry it's not 'pretty'.

Another fine project in the works Ray. I always follow your threads and am really impressed by the quality of your work and the great posts with pictures you make to let us be there with you.
Thanks for taking the time and keep up the fantastic job you are doing!

I hope the redo won't be much of a challenge. Maybe you can incorporate something similar (in operation) to the Ridemaster, not having to squeeze the lever to get back to neutral.

Correcting this isn't going to be any problem.I just have to make another lift pin that is a little longer and make up another lift cable that is longer.

Your idea of modifying the stop bracket would work just fine but I don't want to change the factory design that drastically.I am thinking of modifying the design a little though.

You can see in the photos of the lift lever mechanism that there is a 5/8 inch space between the support bracket for the lift pin and the stop bracket.I've seen some photos of other Been Cutlers and the end of this pin is often bent or broken right off like this one was.I'm thinking of maybe brazing a short piece of steel tube to the underside of the support bracket for the pin.This would then support the pin and the modification wouldn't be that noticable.